the 3 quickest takes ever

Because I should be doing something else.




1. My absence from blogging was mainly because of a mini health crisis. I had symptoms x,y and z, which pointed potentially to roughly 137 ailments, some of which were serious. So I had several tests, a couple that were unpleasant. I came away with a few thoughts.

           a. Increased respect and a small understanding for those that go through this stuff much more than I do, and who don't always get good news or good outcomes. It's a whole other world, that of sickness and pain. It opens wider the eyes of faith, and so many of the things I spend time and energy worrying about become kind of ridiculous.
       
           b. Just how much our bodies are linked with our emotions. When you carry stress around like a backpack full of bricks, eventually, you'll notice the weight. Or, say, if you keep ingesting something that you know is bad for you and tell yourself it is gone now because it's out of sight, guess what? It's going to come out somewhere, somehow, whether you want it to or not! The same with stress. You can only take in and harbor so much, until it starts exiting your body, whether it be in headaches, stomach ailments, anxiety attacks, you name it.

         c. Along with the stressful uncertainly about what might be percolating in my abdomen, there was a lovely peace and assurance that whatever the outcome, I had the support of my family and my Lord. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, which also increased my appreciation of everyone and everything around me. My garden, the birds singing in the mornings, the ability to get comfortable when I lay down at night. Good stuff.


        d. The long and short of it is that 1. All the tests ruled out the scary stuff.
                                                      and  2. Still have some of the symptoms, but am taking a break to forget about it all for a while. My own gut, pardon the pun, tells me it is probably along the lines of IBS (yay, another difficult to nail down thing) and was exacerbated by stress. Workin on that part.

2. Happy and proud to be an American. Just thought I would throw that out there. Hoping the future generations come to appreciate all that we have and what it means to be free.

3. The Duggar debacle. I have read so very many posts excoriating them and of course Christians in general for "causing" what happened with their son and the girls. Sigh. So many people in the "I would never" club. Listen. There is NO sin out of bounds for anyone. It is only God's grace that keeps us at every moment. Now, because I say that, am I defending anyone or anything they did? Because that's where it always jumps. NO. All I am saying is, unless you are actually inside their shoes, you don't know why-- anything. Their being Christian, conservative, in TV, whatever. I don't know their motives. All I can do is pray for them. So, please, jump down off your bandwagon in case it goes into a ditch.

That's all I have time for today. Hope to be back again before my summer road trip!

Peace, 

Kelly

Change, Obedience, and Humility

 

           Our country, at this moment in history, is becoming a place I hardly recognize. America, almost by definition, is a place where a person has been free to pursue his own course, speak his mind, and above all, believe what he has come to believe as truth, whether it be to embrace a religion or not, or to be somewhere on the continuum between the two. Now, if one is not of the popular mindset, which leans away from anything traditional, God-centered, or remotely suggestive of the idea that we as humans are not the origin and center of all that is wise and good; we are ridiculed and even attacked at every turn. The scandal within the Catholic Church is held up as a reason to negate all that God has done in establishing her. I wonder, where is the scathing denunciation and pile-on lawsuits for, say, the public school? Where abuse happens in exponential quantities in comparison to the Church.

     Now the Obama Administration is legislating how we can live out our faith. Those arguments I hear in defense are so incredibly hollow, off point, and downright bitter, I am wondering who really believes all that. I have heard that it is okay to mandate religious based institutions and groups to fund the latest package of "womens services", directly, if self insured, or indirectly, through their OWN tax dollars (after all, no government money is anything but), because, "98% of Catholics practice birth control." 1. what a load of you know what THAT stat is. (Read the debunking of that here). 2. oh, so that makes it A-Ok to tread all over religious conscience, and 3. it does not address any of the other mandates, abortion or Plan B. And if I hear the term, "services" for women one more time, I may throw up. I can tell you that those "services" are indeed DIS- services to women, "assisting" them only in becoming ever less valued. Power over life and death does not belong to us, fellow women, not to men either, but only God. Remember dear Archangel Lucifer and what happened to him?

  The idea that humility is weakness is entirely backwards. It is more heroic, more taxing, more thoughtful and yes, intelligent (yeah, I said it!) to maintain oneself in humility than to go blasting about proclaiming how powerful we are over this, that and the other. No person has power over the will of God and the turning of the earth. Thank God! By the same token, it is through humility that we can actually see ourselves for who we really were created to be. And how incredibly loved by God we are even when we do not love Him back or appreciate His infinite patience, mercy and kindness toward us. To be submissive, obedient and humble before God is to indeed help ourselves realize all that not only is lacking, (because that is all our condition), but to see the good in ourselves as well. Just acknowledging that we did not originate the good, is not weakness. It is a way to tap into the life of the Trinity through sanctifying grace and realize that we as women and all people, have the power to effect change on earth that will actually lead to real freedom instead of the suffocating arm of government forcing its will upon us. God knows His rule is absolute, and yet, He never forces. He only loves. And to love means to tell the truth. To be humble means to realize the truth about ourselves; not to  put ourselves down and not to lift ourselves up, but to know the place in our God's heart that we dwell in, and to respond to that love and therefore live in His power, which transcends all earthly ones.

As I stated in the opening paragraph, this country is supposed to be, the last time I checked, a place where we are free to walk our own faith journey unencumbered. To not have our government prying open our heads to insert its own agenda. To not be so insecure that it needs to micromanage us into submission. God doesn't do that even to unbelievers. If a person wants to make a choice not to believe, they are free to do so. God is ultimately more pro-choice than the so-called pro-choicers. (who only respect your choice if it lines up with theirs). He just offers that little side benefit we like to call Eternal Life. If we will put our own agenda aside for one millisecond and find out what He is really about, He is right there to welcome us with open arms and willing to mend our broken hearts.

I for one, plan to cultivate whatever task He gives me to share His life with whomever He gives me. And if America no longer wants to allow that, then, I guess she will be having a problem with me.

God's Blessings and Peace

~Kelly

+JMJ+

Additional note taken from article cited above--a further comment by its author-
Scott, for clarity's sake: I'm not Catholic. I am a Christian and an analytic philosopher. I don't like cant and lies. This administration and their fellow travelers traffic heavily in cant and lies. Heavily exaggerated statistics are part of that program. As a purely secular friend said to me, in almost these exact words, "One reason that this is important is because the underlying message is that the Catholic views are not simply wrong but _crazy_, that they do not describe an achievable way of life." I think that was shrewd. Whether one agrees or not with the Roman Catholic Church's position re. contraception, the current liberal meme is that it is _insane_, that no one _could_ live according to those principles. The idea is to demonize social conservatives generally, with the Catholic Church serving as a kind of proxy for "everything sexual and social liberals hate." Both for that reason and for the sake of accuracy, debunking exaggerated statistics as I was attempting to do in the main post is relevant.






image source:http://img.wikinut.com/img/r3c-pwcyffzh8d9v/jpeg/0/The-barren-landscape-of-Salt-Lake.jpeg

God Bless America!

With all it's troubles, I still love our country. Despite what "hope and change" has brought us, I still believe in the American Dream.

Thank you to all the servicemen and women, past, present and future, who will fight and even die to keep us free.

Let's vote to keep ourselves and all human beings, born and unborn, free to enjoy life, liberty and happiness in this great land.

God Bless America!